The Exchange: Marilyn Johnson on Librarians

“Someday I will stop being surprised at all the things librarians read; they’ll read anything,” writes Marilyn Johnson in “This Book is Overdue” (Harper), her newly published exploration of libraries in the digital age. Anecdotally, it appears that many librarians are now reading Johnson’s engaging book. In it, she writes about the many ways technology is changing librarianship and the ways librarians are changing technology. She offers a survey of library blogs, attends library conventions, writes about anarchist librarians, and considers how venerable institutions such as the New York Public Library are adapting to the world of Google. Johnson kindly agreed to answer a few questions by e-mail from her home in New York.

Your first book was about obituaries. How did you jump from that subject to writing about librarians?

You can read about all sorts of work in the obituaries, from rocket scientists to mule divers, but the obituaries for librarians made me feel as if I were missing some extraordinary people at a crucial moment in their profession. The explosion of information and information delivery systems meant that library science was exploding, too. What’s it like to be a librarian in the digital age? Lots of librarians are charging into that wild frontier and reshaping and reinventing the profession, and I wanted to talk to them before they hit the obit page, or I did.

How did you go about finding the many libraries and librarians you wrote about?

Librarians are the most organized, networked, literate people around, and they love to help. I asked all sorts of librarians to recommend colleagues who they felt were doing visionary work, and they flooded me with suggestions. I did not have trouble finding great librarians; I had trouble choosing among them all. Library Journal was a wonderful source; every year it designates the young “Movers and Shakers” who are reshaping librarianship, and more than one of my subjects received this honor. I also submerged myself in several ALA (American Library Association) conventions and one called Computers In Libraries before I succumbed to information sickness.

Serendipity played a part, too. I encountered the Connecticut Four, the library group that challenged the Patriot Act, when I happened to stand next to one of them at a benefit and he plucked a bit of cellophane off my husband’s suit.

Among the librarians you spoke with, did you mostly find optimism or pessimism regarding the profession’s future in the digital age?

I began researching this book in 2006, when there was a lot of optimism and excitement in the field, in spite of the pervasive illusion that Google puts a librarian in everyone’s computer. (Google’s great, but it can’t possibly replace trained humans.) The new technology and tools were challenging librarians in interesting ways, and the presence of public computers and wifi in libraries meant librarians had even more ways and means to make themselves useful.

But the economic troubles have affected the mood in libraryland. Library use is soaring as library funding is being cut. And all those librarians who have been helping put this country to work—showing stressed patrons how to navigate government services, create resumes, find jobs—are being let go, right and left. The unthinkable is happening in some places—Philadelphia, the home of Benjamin Franklin’s first library, nearly had to shut down its public libraries this past spring!

Librarians are an incredible bargain. We don’t save that much by cutting their modest salaries, and we are going to pay a very high price indeed for the loss of their services.

What was the best story you heard that didn’t make it into the book?

Ah, meet me at the bar around the corner after work.

What kind of reaction have you had from the library community so far?

The book has been embraced with gratitude and enthusiasm by librarians, even though it tells all kind of tales on them. I don’t think librarians get much appreciation for gathering and organizing our shared culture, running our democratic cyber cafes, and picking up the slack for parents and schools and the government and social welfare. I’ve had librarians thank me in tears.

I also had my last batch of overdue fines waived. Uh, huh, the librarian said. I’m not charging you!

What was the most out-of-character conversation you had with a librarian?

What’s IN character? The librarian who competes at roller derby as MegaBeth? The expert at fantasy football? I used to try to guess what kind of books librarians like to read. Even that was impossible. I met a group of children’s librarians who were all mad for romances. One of my local librarians was a Samuel Johnson scholar.

I wrote about one conversation, in which I asked a reference librarian where the graphic novels were. She was the picture of a classic librarian, silver-haired and buttoned to the neck. “Are you looking for anything in particular?” she said. I told her I wanted to check out Maus. Her eyes lit up, and she jumped from behind her desk and dragged me over to the graphic novels shelf. Then she handed me Maus as if she were handing me a Shakespeare folio. “I loved this, and I hope you love it, too,” she said fervently.

They’re harder to peg than you’d think.

Could you name a couple of your favorite library/librarian blogs?

I can’t live without Jessamyn West’s librarian.net. She’s both completely wired, the first to jump on an interesting story, and completely human, always on the side of those Good Librarian Values. She’s funny, too.

There are lots of terrific librarian blogs that can help you learn more about technology and social networking, and I’ve found Librarian in Black wonderfully useful. The Society for Librarians Who Say Motherfucker is a guilty pleasure. Anonymous librarians from all over post stories of bad behavior on the part of their patrons and bosses.

I’m addicted to Awful Library Books, which posts covers and pages from some of the antique books that librarians find on their shelves and decide to weed. An ancient-looking Sex Lives of Animals Without Backbones was recently featured, as was the 1977 book, “Johnny’s Such a Bright Boy, Too Bad He’s Retarded.” It’s a parade of inadvertent howlers and the politically incorrect.

Ever think of becoming a librarian yourself?

I worked as a page at my local library when I was in high school. I earned 95 cents an hour. After a year, I asked for a raise; I wanted to earn a dollar an hour. They turned me down, so I quit. And that was the end of my library career. I’m really sorry now I played hardball over a nickel. I’m never more at home than when I’m in a library.